


To Drink Kanar Again

by TARDISTraveller42



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Banter, Damar needs a vacation, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Kanar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28219494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TARDISTraveller42/pseuds/TARDISTraveller42
Summary: Damar and Weyoun are bantering again. But this time, it leads to Damar's worst nightmare: the Founders banning Kanar in all government buildings (which, on Cardassia, means most buildings).A fic for flexmartian on tumblr, for the star trek secret santa exchange. Hope you enjoy!!
Relationships: Damar & Weyoun (Star Trek)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13
Collections: Star Trek Secret Santa 2020





	To Drink Kanar Again

To Drink Kanar Again

The war was going well for the Dominion. Surely one of these days the Federation would surrender and the Alpha Quadrant would be theirs again. Cardassia would rise from the shadow of the failed Bajoran Occupation, above even the Founders’ influence, and claim its rightful place as a respected planet once more. Yes, the war out there was going well.

It was the war in here that made Damar anxious.

It wasn’t the towering Jem’Hadar soldiers standing at the entrance of every office and every tactical station. No, they were nothing more than a slight nuisance. The real issue was the purple-eyed creature standing at Damar’s console. 

Weyoun. The most irritating person Damar had ever had the misfortune of working with.

“Why are you at my station?” Damar demanded, approaching the desk as he finished off his last drop of kanar. 

Weyoun looked up from a display of maps he had been examining with that judgmental glint in his eye. He’d seen the kanar, then. And he’d probably tattle to the Changeling like a schoolchild, like he always did.

“I was merely tuning your astrometrics diagnostic. The phase variance was 0.2 degrees out of phase.”

“What do you know about astrometrics?” Damar scoffed. 

“More, it seems, than you do.”

Damar let that comment go with only a frown in response. 

He would not let this man get to him today. As annoying as Weyoun was, he was certainly not the worst thing Damar had dealt with in his life. He’d lived through wars. He’d survived Guls that would have had him exiled if he so much as sneezed when he wasn’t supposed to. This purple-eyed freak was not going to be the thing that broke him.

And yet…

And yet, as Weyoun continued to make adjustments to Damar’s station (Damar’s station! Not Weyoun’s, Damar’s!), he found that he was grasping his kanar with a little more force than he should have. Just another squeeze and the bottle would shatter. 

“There,” Weyoun said, lifting his hand off of the console with a flourish. He gave Damar a smile that was loaded with everything except friendliness. “Perhaps if you’d drink less of that kanar, you’d be able to tell when your sensors were misaligned.”

Damar barely, barely kept himself from shattering the bottle in his fist. Instead, he crossed the room and clanged it into a replicator, growling at the computer to make it disappear.

“The kanar,” he murmured, just loud enough that Weyoun could hear, “is the only thing keeping me sane around here. Around you.”

“Ooh!” Weyoun cooed, clapping his hands together with that annoying smile on his face. “I do love it when we banter like this. I do appreciate the Jem’Hadar’s efforts for the Dominion, but,” he side-eyed the Jem’Hadar guard at the door and leaned in closer to Damar, “They aren’t nearly as good conversationalists.”

“This isn’t a conversation,” Damar said bluntly. He pushed past Weyoun and stood at his station, checking everything over. Luckily, the Vorta hadn’t completely thrown off his scans. The maps he’d been studying were still here.

Weyoun didn’t respond for a long moment, which unsettled Damar even more than if he had responded negatively. When he had found a map to examine, Damar turned to the Vorta and found his purple eyes locked on him. He wasn’t staring at his eyes; Weyoun wasn’t that bold. He was just...staring at him. 

Even worse, Weyoun was frowning. 

When Weyoun frowned, it was even worse than his eerie smile. Damar felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, and turned back to his console.

“Shouldn’t you be working?” he spat, unable to hold it in any longer.

Weyoun was quiet for a second too long. Then, plastering on that smile again, he went to his own work station.

“Perhaps we’ll find a work ethic for you after all, Damar.”

The only response Damar allowed himself was a sigh, a roll of the eyes, and a frown toward his star charts.

………………………. …………………… ……………….. …………………..

“WEYOUN!” Damar shouted, stomping through the hallway like a man possessed by a Klingon seeking out his prey. “Where is that little…”

“You asked for me?”

The small man appeared so suddenly that Damar was caught off guard. Had he been hiding in a crawlspace, waiting to jump out at him? Or was it just another of his strange habits; sitting in random hallways staring at the metallic walls and watching people pass by? Anything was possible, with a man as strange as Weyoun.

“Where is the kanar?” Damar asked, remembering why he was so angry in the first place. “It’s been deleted from every replicator in the building.”

Weyoun smiled, confirming his involvement in this little mystery.

“Ah, yes; the kanar. The Founders insisted that we purge the replicator database of all alcoholic beverages.”

Damar’s face fell, along with his heart. No...no alcoholic beverages? Was he serious? What was this, some feeble little terran colony? This was Cardassia! His Cardassia! And these Dominion people barge in and ban alcohol…

“Alcohol is permitted in personal households,” Weyoun acquiesced, holding his hands up as if to steady Damar. “However, transporting it within 100 meters of government buildings is now a punishable crime.”

Damar didn’t respond. Honestly, his brain was still processing all of this. He had to admit his dependence on kanar wasn’t healthy. But there was a war going on, his beloved planet was being controlled by non-Cardassians, and honestly health was the last thing on his mind. 

And more to the point, if the Dominion could ban kanar, what would be next? Relationships? Off hours? Would their entire lives become nothing more than cogs in the Dominion machine; losing their independence before the war was even over?

Weyoun’s continued stare began to unsettle him, so Damar decided he had to respond. He only allowed himself a short sentence, first, to test himself. To test his self control.

“Where is the stash of kanar we had in storage? For when the building’s replicators went offline?”

“I drank it,” said Weyoun.

“You…?” A laugh escaped Damar’s chest. 

“I drank all of the kanar that was in our storage facility,” Weyoun said simply.

“You drank it all,” repeated Damar.

Weyoun nodded, his enormous eyes lighting up as he smiled.

Wait...wait. No. He…?

“You aren’t serious,” said Damar. 

Because, really. Weyoun couldn’t be serious. Could he?

The Vorta’s continued smiling and nodding made Damar wonder. And then it made him incredulous.

“There were over 100 bottles in storage!” Damar said, louder than he meant. His face broke out in a hysterical smile.

“It was a rather difficult task. But I’m not affected by alcohol,” Weyoun replied. Then, with a shrug, “The Founders insisted I dispose of it as quickly as possible. And I never disappoint the Founders.”

Weyoun’s eyes locked onto his, and suddenly Damar was sure that the man was not lying. He...he really had drunk all of the kanar. Every last drop within 100 meters. 

For a moment, Damar wasn’t sure if he was going to break out into another manic laugh or if he was going to punch the Vorta in the ear. But as soon as Weyoun’s head tilted in that insufferable way, as if he were Damar’s father telling him that it was time to leave the playground now...Damar knew he couldn’t hold in his anger any longer.

Then, luckily or unluckily, Damar’s clenched fists were halted by a singular voice.

“I am glad to find you both here together.”

It was the female Changeling. Her voice sent a shiver down Damar’s spine. Somehow, all of these Dominion people could move like the wind. You never saw them coming until they were right there with you, inescapable. 

Weyoun’s head was bent toward the floor at an almost uncomfortable angle, his eyes boring into the floor as if his life depended on it.

“Founder,” he said with a bow, “I was not expecting you here today. May I-”

“I am not here long,” the Founder cut off, holding up a silencing hand. 

Her frown toward Weyoun was almost enough to spark sympathy in Damar. He found Weyoun endlessly irritating. But as the war waged on, he was beginning to loathe the Founders even more than the Vorta. After all, they were the ones turning his Cardassia into a fascist state controlled by strangers. The Vorta were just their puppets.

“I have an assignment for you two to work on.” The Founder held out a PADD. 

Since Weyoun was still staring at the floor, hesitant to take anything that had been held by his esteemed Founders, Damar took it for himself. It appeared to be yet another star chart, this one focused on a sector near Terok Nor. Little dots moved along designated paths, like tiny spaceships in formation.

“I want you to watch the movements of ships in this sector. Ours and everyone else’s. Inform me of any anything you find: weaknesses in their tactics, spatial anomalies…”

“Are we preparing to attack Terok Nor, then?” Damar asked. He didn’t mean to cut off the Founder, and found himself gulping when Weyoun’s wide eyes turned to him in shock. But she, fortunately, ignored his transgression.

“That information is confidential at the moment,” the Founder stated. She folded her hands in front of her, gave them each a nod, and then disappeared as quickly as she had arrived.

When she was out of sight, Damar released a breath he’s been holding. Thank God that was over, at least. Now they just had to complete their assignment fast enough not to warrant another little visit from the Founder.

Damar turned to find Weyoun straightening up, slowly raising his head with the eyes of someone exiting a house of worship. Damar had seen that look before; mostly Bajorans leaving their temples. Sometimes he wondered if his life would be improved, if he had something he believed in enough to warrant such an expression on his face.

But before he could get caught up in that line of thought, Damar glanced at the PADD in his hand and then settled it at his side.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said, starting off toward the astrometrics lab.

“Er, Damar,” Weyoun said suddenly, stopping Damar in his tracks. “I did not have the chance to say this earlier...as an act of goodwill toward you, I did program the computer with a non-alcoholic recipe for kanar.”

For a split second, Damar almost smiled. He hadn’t heard a kind word like that in so, so long. Which is why his almost-smile only lasted a split second before doubt crept in. Would Weyoun poison him with tainted kanar? Or was he trying to manipulate him in some way; act nice now so that he can blackmail him later?

Needing to reply with something that wasn’t suspicious, Damar did allow himself to smile. 

“It’s not the same without alcohol.”

“You’re correct,” Weyoun said. “My recipe isn’t poisonous.”

Damar froze. The Vorta weren’t mindreaders, were they? Oh God, if they were…

But no. Weyoun was smiling. It had been a joke. Definitely just a joke about how bad alcohol was for one’s health. 

Damar released yet another breath, and allowed yet another smile. Because yes, there was a war on. And yes, he had nobody whom he could trust. But that meant he needed to hold onto the few moments when he could just share a joke and a smile; the moments he could walk down the hallway with reasonable confidence that he wasn’t going to be attacked. 

And so, Damar chuckled. And he and Weyoun accompanied each other toward the astrometrics lab. As they walked, Damar dreamed of the future of Cardassia. A day when children played in the streets again, and elders were not afraid that strangers would take their lifelong homes. A day when there were no more Vorta; no more Changelings.

A day when he could drink kanar again, and all would be well.


End file.
